Attendees at the first public meeting for the Sunnyside Yard Master Planning Process on Oct. 24. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
Oct. 25, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
Hundreds poured into LaGuardia Community College last night for the first public meeting of the Sunnyside Yard master planning process.
About 450 people RSVP’d to the event, according to staffers, who registered guest upon guest into the five-station workshop put on by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the agency leading the project, and Amtrak, which owns a large portion of the yard.
Some waited in line close to an hour after doors opened before finally reaching the main event.
The workshop marks the first of several opportunities that the public will have to provide input during the master planning process, which kicked off this summer and represents a major milestone toward the city’s goal of fully developing over the 180-acre yard.
The master plan is anticipated to be released in just over a year by the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), the lead consultant for the project. The plan is supposed to dictate what can be built over the yard over the course of several years, touching on virtually all aspects related to urban planning like parks, schools, transportation, housing, and more.
The plan will also spell out development phases and a timeline for the potential build-out over the yard.
A workshop station. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
“It’s a key, key priority for the de Blasio administration, and it’s an exercise in dreaming big,” said Carl Rodrigues, senior advisor to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who leads the recently formed Sunnyside Yard Steering Committee.
The approximately 35-member steering committee is made up of community leaders, stakeholders, and experts from the seven neighborhoods that surround the yard. The members, many of whom were in attendance last night, are tasked with providing their perspectives on what can and should be built over the yard to the technical team behind the master plan.
The interactive stations at the workshop, led by members of the consultant team and city and Amtrak reps, focused on themes like identifying problems and solutions to existing concerns in western Queens; overall visioning for the yard; and what future workshops on the master planning process should focus on.
Ideas given by attendees. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
By the end of the two-hour event, attendees had filled the multiple boards at the workshop with a flurry of sticky-notes spelling out what they wanted over the yard and more—either in generous detail or blunt bullet points.
“Smart affordable development with considerations to open space and transit system capacity,” one note left on a visioning board reads.
“Nothing—but since the city will do what they want…PLAN!” reads another.
The planning team, however, told the crowd that it is coming into this project with a blank canvas, and that it is committed to collaborative engagement in the form of workshops, site visits, surveys, and more.
“There is no plan yet,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of PAU. “We are just at the beginning of this process.”
He added that the sheer number of approvals processes, phasing, and more involved in potential development ensures that any future plan for the yard will be done over many years.
“Whatever happens here will be phased over many decades,” Chakrabarti said. “Nothing is going to happen right away.”
Despite the city heavily promoting its interest in community engagement for the process, some attendees the LIC Post spoke to said they are not sure their concerns will fully translate into the potential future plan for the yard.
Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the PAU. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
They recalled recent large-scale projects and rezonings led by the city that were met with opposition by residents who said it’s bad planning, fearing it will lead to displacement, overcrowding, and other problems.
“I want to believe that our city government is finally listening,” said Annabelle Rose M., who has been living in Sunnyside for a year and a half. “At the same time, I’m aware that there’s a track record and a public perception that that doesn’t always happen.”
She said one of her reasons for attending the workshop is her involvement in the Smiling Hogshead Ranch, a community garden just across the street from the yard on Skillman Avenue in Long Island City.
“We are interested in being part of the conversation because we know it’s going to be pretty much right next door,” she said.
The master planning team, she added, has already reached out and started communicating with the group.
And while opposition to developing over the yard was palpable well before the beginning of the master planning process, workshop attendees generally expressed interest in seeing something go over the area.
“It’s one of the most anticipated projects, so I’d like to see where everyone’s mindset is,” said Marc Bucaoto, a 31-year-old lifelong Woodside resident. He’s mostly looking forward to seeing how developing the yard will address issues like affordable housing and parking.
Betty Zhang, a 46-year-old Sunnyside resident for the past 20 years, also said the city needs to develop the yard, and can demonstrate a new level of leadership in doing so. Her ideas include new schools, hospitals, and parks—all devised with modernity in mind.
“The city can be a pioneer,” she said. “This is a space to do it.”
She describes the planning process as a boat that the surrounding community is on.
“We are the passengers,” she said. “We want to vote on the direction.”
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12 Comments
The reality: Construction Methods, Financial Viability and site proximity to Manhattan have evolved to where covering Sunnyside Yard is a virtual certainty.
Unfortunately, NYC discarded the opportunity to build new inland parks and pedestrian-friendly connectors to Gantry State Park (atop natural ground). As Hudson Yards is now building a new Blvd above Penn rail yard at costs of $125M per city block – the prospect of building any sizable park (meadows, ballfields, etc) atop covered Sunnyside Rail Yard is 100% cost implausible.
Again, the build-out atop Sunnyside will happen. But the costs of significant quality-of-life amenities built atop the rail yard are outside developers (and I suspect, city planners) vision. So when such development begins, best insist that the Hunters Point South approach be taken: Build the parks first, followed by the development of high rises.
Times change. What once was an eyesore that nobody valued being next to is now the viable, desirable means of creating “new land”.
While opposition is completely understandable, the reality is that proximity to Manhattan and existing transit infrastructure have Sunnyside Rail Yards squarely in the bulls eye, re massive residential and corporate development atop a platform.
Aside from people not wanting this to happen, I can’t think of a reason why building a deck and buildings above Sunnyside Rail Yard will not happen.
Have they considered turning it into a siding and storage yard for trains?
NO!!! City housing Projects… No, high luxury high rises!!! Build a Medical College for students who want to become doctors, and build a Cancer Research Institute. Keep the the area clean and keep undesirables out that make NYC streets become ghetto.
How about they just keep it as a rail yard? The area is crowded enough, we do need any more of anything.
Totally disagree. If this is done correctly it can actually bridge all these communities together. However, they must create a business HUB where the people that rent or own here can also walk to work, which reduces the need for transportation. They also need to use the new east river access tunnel to add mass transit options to the area and maybe even another aerial tram. I wouldn’t mind if the buildings were thinner and taller in exchange for more green space. There would be taller buildings but with much more green space surround them or better yet they designate a large central portion of the master plan for a park which would serve as our own “Central or Prospect Park”.
NYC housing is one of the oldest in the country and every year more of it becomes obsolete. We need to find ways to replace and build a smarter and more efficient city or we will stop being a world class city. Change is hard but that is what NYC is all about.
It was really nice to see no-elected-officials present at the meeting — GREAT representation with taxation!!
JVBs chief of staff was there.
Nothing should go over the yards except more trains and buses. STOP DEVELOPING already. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!Developers have ruined LIC and will RUIN ASTORIA AND SUNNYSIDE also. Van Bramer DeBlasio smell $$$$$$$$$$$for their campaigns with all developments. Cuomo will be shutting down Indian Point soon, where will the POWER come from? How will you get on an at capacity already train/bus? Those are the things people should be asking!!!!!!! Think people, THINK, Use your heads. How many Homeless shelters will be built in these areas? When people say New Yorkers are DUMB, I see what they mean. How many units will actually be affordable?? Don’t let them make your neighborhood part of their CITY FOR THE RICH PLAN which KING Bloomberg started with his PLANYC 2030 project. DeBlasio said he ran on a anti-Bloomberg platform and lied. He is continuing Bloomberg’s city for the rich plan. Don’t be fooled this is gentrification at its best. You will be priced out as many in LIC already have. Don’t let the developers win.
And again, the laws of supply and demand are ignored when it comes to housing. Yep, leave a gaping wound in the landscape. It’s great!
Optics, it’s no a “wound” you dolt, it’s a rail yard. And there is nothing wrong with a rail yard. The original MRLIC is right, we don’t need anything there. The major, underlying issue is overcrowding, and building anything in that space will only make matters worse. I’m sorry that some of the recent transplants to NYC are too ignorant to realize this.
I’m shocked the billionaire developer president I voted for enacts policies FOR THE RICH